AuburnChick's Adventures

As you might be aware, I have a small passion for a little hobby…knitting.

I’ve also had this little thing called a j-o-b that has kept me mostly away from my beloved knitting needles.

Mostly, but not completely…

I present to you my latest project…

The Brattleboro Hat…

This pattern was published in the book New England Knits.  It was also published in the Fall 2010 issue of Interweave Knits.

I fell in love with the hat the moment I saw it in the magazine, and it is the primary reason why I bought the issue.

I have a little secret to tell you.

This is the second one I knit.

I finished the first one the weekend of Thanksgiving.  I made Chicky try it on because her hair was straight and this hat definitely looks better on smoothed-out hair.

As soon as Chicky put it on, she told me, “Mama, if you ever want to make me one, I’ll take it.”

If your child had never asked you to make her anything hand-knit…had, in fact, scoffed at most of the things you’d made, what would you do?

Yeah.

I thought so.

I gave it to her, same as you would have.

I can’t publish the pictures I took of her.  Let’s just say that it looked tres cool on her.

Which led me to my quest to make another one.

Thankfully I have a decent yarn stash.  A quick hunt turned up another skein of the lovely Malabrigo in the same colorway – Bijou Blue (Malabrigo feels like what clouds in heaven must feel like, if you’re not a yarnie).

I started knitting, but work got in the way.

I finally finished up a few days ago and had a photography session yesterday morning (yay for tripods and self-timers!)…

Now, let me tell you about the decreases.

They

Were

Not

Fun.

Oh no, not one little bit.  The first hat sat, unfinished, for weeks simply because I could not figure out what to do!  I’ve been knitting for several years, but the instructions did not mesh with the pattern.

So I finally emailed the designer after receiving no help on Ravelry.

The designer finally got back with me.  She tried to help, but her answers were vague, and she never really did answer my questions.

I did take one thing she said and gave it another go.  I knit a few rounds, figured out my mistakes, took notes, tinked back, and reknit.

Voila!  The decreases worked perfectly with the pattern!

Here’s what I did, in case you’re a knitter and have been struggling with this part of the pattern:

Round 17: Decrease per instructions, but do a knit stitch after the first decrease (to keep with the pattern as established)

Round 18: Begin the round with a PURL stitch. Then, work the moss pattern (next stitch is a knit, etc…).

Round 19: Decrease, knit one, then follow the instructions for the decrease rounds.

I found that I usually had to do a knit stitch after the decrease to keep the moss pattern going.

Round 20: Do exactly as Round 18.

The odd rounds are exactly the same each time. So are the even rounds.

Trust me. This works exactly as I’ve written. I totally ignored the moss stitch instructions in the pattern during my decreases except to make sure that I had two rounds that resembled each other (two stacked knit stitches and two stacked purl stitches, etc.) and then reverse.

Here’s a picture of Chicky wearing the hat.  You can see the decreases really well…

Ok…so let’s talk needle size.

For the first hat, I used size 8 (5 mm).  The hat seemed a little large, but Chicky liked the hat as it was.

For the second hat, I went down one needle size to a 7 (4.50 mm), and what a difference!  The hat is a much snugger fit, and it still covers my ears…

The side has the cutest faux button band…

I chose simple, “earthy” buttons so they wouldn’t compete with the yarn…

The entire project (one hat) required only 65 grams of yarn.  I think I might have enough leftovers between both skeins to make a matching pair of fingerless gloves!

But, they will have to wait.  I have a busy few months ahead of me.

Filed under: Knitting | Tagged: Brattleboro Hat, hats, Knitting, malabrigo | 6 Comments »